


nowhere to go, no one to be

by icarxs



Category: Luther (TV)
Genre: Actually probably less than canon typical tbh, Canon-Typical Violence, English Pubs As Mating Grounds, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Grieving, I'm sorry BBC, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Typically Surly Dialogue, but there is explicit verbal consent so.., i actually don't know because i don't know the canon that well, is this canon divergent?? is it canon compliant??, the consent is mildly dubious because they are tipsy, this has no plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 15:22:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5545028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarxs/pseuds/icarxs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you want to – stop me, ok? If this is overstepping – get a drink. We could get a drink. Tonight.” Maybe he saw something in Luther’s face, because he added, “lots of drinks.”<br/>“Lots of drinks,” Luther said, pulling the file towards him and flicking it open, “sounds perfect.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	nowhere to go, no one to be

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first time writing Luther fic. there isn't even a plot to make up for the lack of explicit sex im sorry !!
> 
> i'm also sorry to the bbc and to idris elba for this kind of sacrilege.
> 
> this is so weird and fragmented and disjointed, but parts are set post-3x04 (and are probably canon divergent from season 4 because I haven't seen that yet) and parts are set between 2x02 and 2x03

Luther dreams of Ripley.

This isn’t unusual. His dreams are usually haunted – the cast changes every night, an endless merry-go-round of accusatory faces, cycling round and round, _why is it that those Luther loves_ … _?_

Ripley isn’t bleeding, and something in John’s unconscious mind is glad to see him like this again, bright, shirt crisp, hands deep in his pockets. He doesn’t have that tired look about him that he had had those last few weeks, after Stark, the bags under his eyes, the grey tinge to his skin. Luther finds himself saying, “little Ripleys of your own,” just that one phrase, and sees Justin frown in confusion.

“What?” he asks, with a faint laugh, “John?” and then something in his face changes. His mouth opens in shock, and instead of words, instead of ‘Boss’, instead of ‘I’m on it’, blood comes pouring out, all over his chin, his shirt front, his nice smart tie and his lanyard and badge that identifies him as a Detective Sargent, just like he always wanted to be. Luther steps forward, too hasty for safety (a part of his brain is always chanting, check for suspects check for danger gun _no_ man _no_ blood _yes_ where from who from weapon in sight _no_ are you armed _no_ then don’t engage _don’t engage_ ), and yet in that manner of dreams he can’t get there fast enough (he never can) and Ripley hits the floor with a sickening thump of flesh on tarmac. The vicious curved knife is still embedded in the nape of his neck, and behind him is Alice. There’s something about her eyes that are too vivid to be real. John feels like he’s trapped inside a sarcophagus, that he can’t move, that the grief is burying him alive. She grins at him, sharp-toothed.

“Another problem eliminated,” she says, in that sing-song voice of hers. “Aren’t you going to thank me, DCI Luther?”

Luther chokes on his own blood. He wakes missing the taste.

-

June 23rd. John was hungover.

This was actually rare. He wasn’t a man who drank often; it dulled the senses and made him into someone he didn’t want to be, someone with even less control. Alcohol was tempting and all coppers found it that way, found it too easy to fall into the loving embrace of a glass of whisky; Luther tried to guard against temptation in that way. That was why his apartment boiler was always set into low heat, apart from the fact that he had always, since he was a teenager, found it nearly impossible to get up in the mornings if his bed was too comfortable. That was why it was easier to just not sleep.

Ripley was at his desk. Luther grunted some approximation of a greeting before vanishing into his office, set comfortingly away from trouble – trouble in the form of new cases that would make his heart ache, trouble in the form of that new officer, Grey, trouble in the form of paperwork – behind glass and iron. He got halfway through his flask of coffee, staring blankly at a black screen, before there was a knock on the door.

“You look a mess,” Ripley said.

“Alright,” said Luther, “who pissed in your tea?”

Ripley made a face. He didn’t like crude language early in the morning. “It’s the Monroe case.”

“Give it here.”

Ripley had a file under his arm, but he made no move to cross the threshold, less to hand it over into Luther’s waiting grasp. “Nah, ‘s alright. I’m almost there. I can feel him. He’s just –”

He meant the man who killed Cilla Monroe; just out of reach, just out of sight. A figure on the corner of your vision, blurry and indistinct but a definite presence, enough of a presence that it was hard to sleep at night. Luther grunted and drained the last of his coffee. “What’ve you got for me?”

Ripley had changed since Pell. Sometimes Luther caught him staring into space, just for snatched moments, expression far away. Once, just once, he’d seen Ripley outside, smoking, and his hands had been shaking and his breath had been coming in sharp gasps. Luther had left quickly, clump of boots on linoleum. His instinct might have always been to help, but he knew that his help was rarely something that aided recovery.

Finally, Ripley entered the room. He shut the door carefully behind him. Luther folded his fingers together carefully. “Boss,” Ripley said, “are you alright? I meant it. You look rough.”

Luther regarded him carefully. “You don’t look so hot yourself,” he said. Ripley shrugged in a sudden twitch.

“You don’t have the monopoly on bad dreams.”

“Tell me about it.” He stretched, rolled his shoulders, heard them crack. Ripley’s eyes were on him in a strange way, a way that made his skin itch; it wasn’t necessarily unpleasant, not at all the wary mistrustful look Grey had, or a look that was checking him for how long his fuse had to go. He considered lying for a long time, but decided abruptly that he had too little honesty in his life. “It was Zoe’s birthday yesterday.”

“Oh,” said Ripley. It was strange, the shape his mouth made when he exclaimed surprise. Strange and familiar. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve –”

“No, no, don’t be stupid. It’s not a big deal.”

“It’s quite a big deal.” Ripley stepped forward and put the file on Luther’s desk. It joined the other open cases, the ones that bothered Luther constantly in a choir at the back of his mind, _Hopkins Palmer Prisha, Stanton, Miller_ – a particularly nasty one, that one, lots of blood, Ripley had been pale – _Monroe, Tiwari, Baxter_ , an endless litany of victims. “Do you want to – stop me, ok? If this is overstepping – get a drink. We could get a drink. Tonight.” Maybe he saw something in Luther’s face, because he added, “lots of drinks.”

“Lots of drinks,” Luther said, pulling the file towards him and flicking it open, “sounds perfect.”

 

They went to the Queen’s Arms. There were a lot of pubs in London called that, but this one was out near Mile End, far enough from the centre that Luther stopped checking over his shoulder. It was an area that was recently cleaned up, but which still held ghosts of violence on street corners, thousands of gin brawls, knife gangs, eighteenth century dramatics. Luther liked the East End best for that very reason.

“Mate,” Luther said, after his second pint, “mate, I’m telling you, this has been a crap day.”

His blood alcohol limit was probably still higher than it should’ve been, but Ripley hated the tube and so Luther had offered to drive. It was hardly the first law he’d ever broken. Best way to cure a hangover, Zoe had said to him once at university, in his bed, that long hair everywhere, eyes dark, keep on drinking. Ripley looked wryly at him. “I feel like it’s been a long time since a day was anything other than crap,” he said, and Luther twisted on his bar stool. People were being warily lowkey in the pub, and Luther knew that it was Ripley’s fault: everything about him, from his bearing to his neat shoes, screamed police, even though he’d taken his tie off and unbuttoned his top few buttons. The hollow of his throat was an inviting cavern.

“At least you caught Carnahan.”

“I told you he was just there.” Ripley drained his beer. There was something odd about seeing him drink, like seeing an old school friend with children; unsettling and contradictory. “Didn’t help the Monroe girls though.”

“Yeah, well.” Luther didn’t have the energy to spew some shit abut honouring the victims, about how serving justice helps the family, any of that; one some days it all felt so pointless it was better to say nothing at all, and Luther could see in Ripley’s eyes that today was one of thse days. “Another?”

“Go on, then.” Ripley grinned at him blackly as Luther held up two fingers to the barman. “I don’t have anywhere to be.”

Luther looked him over, slowly. He was beginning to flush endearingly in his cheeks like a schoolboy. “Neither do I,” he said. “Neither do I.”

 

Luther’s place was larger than Ripley’s, so they directed the taxi there. It wasn’t like the home he had shared with Zoe, for which he was thankful; there are bare walls instead of family photographs, cold floors with no cream carpet (he remembered that Christmas when he’d knocked an entire bottle of port over the living room floor. It had splattered across the carpet and for a long moment – after his shouted curse – they had stared and watched it seeping into the material, indelible red. They’d laughed for what had felt like hours, shattered the silence with it, until they were weeping), chipped crockery. The summer evening was balmy and warm, but inside the apartment it was still pretty cold. Luther opened the door with difficulty, because Ripley was pressed against it. He kissed better than he looked like he would.

“Jesus,” Ripley breathed, around Luther’s teeth ( _you kiss like a wolf_ , that’s what Zoe had said, when they’d first slept together, back when they were both nineteen and he’d thought that he’d die of happiness the first time he’d made her come, _like you want to tear my throat out_. He’d asked her if that was a bad thing. _No,_ she’d hissed. _Yes. Like that._ ) “This is such a bad idea. We’re intoxicated.”

“The best ideas arrive on the wings of alcohol,” said Luther. He wasn’t sure what was making him poetic; the chemicals in his bloodstream or Ripley’s hands clenched tight in Luther’s shirt at the small of his back. He finally got the key in the lock. Ripley was so warm against him, and Luther kept an arm around his waist as he pushed the handle down, walked them both backwards into the hallway, kicked the door shut behind them with a bang. Ripley made a soft noise in the back of his throat when Luther crushed him against the wall. His hands were large on Ripley’s hips, but Ripley’s mouth was large on his collarbone, his throat, his lips and his jaw, anywhere he could reach. Luther thought, _puppy_. Luther thought, _Zoe was smaller than this_. Luther thought, when his coat hit the floor, _shit_.

Ripley’s hands were on the buttons of his shirt. Luther’s tie was back at the office; he wondered if Grey would notice that he’d left it there, if she’d think Ripley and him had gone for more of a drink. His curse, this was his curse, a mind that was always running, always rushing. Zoe always said –

Ripley had a palm on his cheek, cupped under his jaw, thumb on his cheekbone. His eyes were a very dark brown, the pupils swallowed by the irises, or was it the other way around, and for that matter was it irises? That sounded wrong. Iri wasn’t right either. Luther was – “Take a breath,” said Ripley. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

Ripley planted his hands very firmly on Luther’s shoulders and pushed. Luther staggered a few steps back; Ripley looked faintly proud. He probably couldn’t have shifted him if Luther wasn’t half-drunk, but he didn’t have the heart to say so. Ripley was hard in his suit trousers, pink under his collar, birght-eyed. “You’re thinking too much. I can feel you thinking. You don’t have to do this.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Luther went to kiss him again but Ripley’s hands caught on his chest. The way his fingers curled in the half-undone neck of Luther’s shirt made him shudder in a way that wasn’t exactly sexual. A problem arisen.

“Come on, boss, now isn’t the time to let me down gently. I shouldn’t’ve taken advantage this way. You’re obviously not…”

Luther rolled his eyes so hard he thought they might get stuck in the back of his head. “Christ,” he said, “let me kiss you, would you?”

“Only if you want to.”

“I don’t do things I don’t want to do.” Luther attempted for some form of bravado. Ripley was not fooled.

“I know that isn’t true.”

“You know too much, that’s your problem.” Heat was coming off Ripley’s skin. “Say yes or say no, but do it quickly, before I actually do go mad.”

Ripley took a little hitched breath and said, “yes,” and Luther was kissing him before he could add _alright, I suppose_ or something typically Ripley, desperate to assure everyone that he wasn’t that eager. This kiss was even better because there wasn’t the nervous tension that came with a first hook-up, the stress that gets under everyone’s skin; it was intent, a means to an end, somehow thorough and harsh at the same time, Ripley’s teeth scraping along Luther’s bottom lip, the way he gulped out _John_. Luther imagined that he could hear Zoe saying, _this took you a while. That’s not like you_ , but he was too distracted to mind.

-

Luther dreams of Ripley.

This isn’t unusual. His dreams are usually haunted – the cast changes every night, an endless merry-go-round of accusatory faces, cycling round and round, _why is it that those Luther loves_ …

Alice and Ripley and Mary’s face spin around in his mind all through the rest of that interminable day. Luther wears black, which is a departure from his usual grey that feels almost disrespectful. Ripley’s coffin is small – too small, really, for a man who had been so large for Luther. His hands had been big enough to hold him down, if he’d set his mind to it. He’d been a big enough man to believe in Luther when no one else had. He’d never stopped that belief. _Alright_ , thinks Luther, sitting next to Erin Grey in the pew, _alright_ , _I suppose_. Not too eager, Justin. Give it time. Let the ceremony take a while. Let us all sit here for just a few moments longer. Give _us_ time, now you don’t need it.

Mary takes his hand and he squeezes it with no guilt. Alice will be long gone by now. She almost feels further away than Justin, because Justin is right here, right in front of them, and has always been much more tangible. And if Justin Ripley is earth – as he soon truly will be, enclosed in that grave forever, no more hands on Luther’s shoulder midway through a case, steadying, understanding – and Alice is air, flighty and untouchable, as like to disappear with a gust of wind as to blow a tornado, then what does that make Mary? Something in between? Water, maybe. A calm pool. Trouble free, ripple free. She has the blue eyes for it.

_why is it that those Luther loves…?_

At the end Mary takes him to get a drink. Luther likes that she knows he needs to be quiet. He’s frightened that at some point it’ll all hit him and he’ll end up killing someone – stabbing them with his damn crutch or something. That’d be a show. Ripley would laugh, probably. Or would that be Alice who’d find it amusing, and Ripley who’d be disappointed? He’ll never know now.

Mary squeezes his fingers again. “D’you want a drink? I’ve got nothing on.”

Luther very nearly laughs, but doesn’t. Instead he says, “neither do I. Neither do I.”

**Author's Note:**

> my twitter is [here](http://twitter.com/catastrphx) and my tumblr is [here](http://catastrphx.tumblr.com) so come and say hello


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